Johnny Lightning Barris Show Rods

If your really into hot rods, chances are you are also into collecting some sort of hot rod-related stuff too. Die cast perhaps? It’s hard to name just one car nut I know that didn’t play with Hot Wheels, Tootsie Toys, or Matchbox cars as a kid. It’s also common for this die cast car-collecting habit to kick back up as an adult. Case in point, I picked up these Barris Show Rod’s when they came out in the early to mid 1990s. At that time, it was pretty difficult to find any historically accurate 50s “Kustom” cars in die cast. There were plenty of 1:64 scale modern customs and billet street rods, but these Johnny Lightning’s were a rare find. The entire series featured eight Barris creations, but for the purist, the five to have are: (Fred) Rowe’s Merc, The Sam Barris Merc, (’54 Ford F100) Wild Kat, the Kopper Kart, and Joe Urritta’s 1941 Ford called a “’41 Phaeyton” on the packaging. Pretty nice detail and heft to these little cars, and each comes with a plastic ‘mirror’ base that rotates- Show Rod indeed!